that grateful and moralizing stillness with which some
country scene (the rura et silentium) generally inspires us, when we
awake to its consciousness from the troubled dream of dark and unquiet
thought, stole over his mind: and certain old lines which his uncle,
who loved the soft and rustic morality that pervades the ancient race of
English minstrels, had taught him, when a boy, came pleasantly into his
recollection,

"With all, as in some rare-limn'd book, we see
Here painted lectures of God's sacred will.
The daisy teacheth lowliness of mind;
The camomile, we should be patient still;
The rue, our hate of Vice's poison ill;
The woodbine, that we should our friendship hold;
Our hope the savory in the bitterest cold."
--[Henry Peacham.]

The old man stopped from his work, as the musing figure of his guest
darkened the prospect before him, and said:

"A pleasant time, Sir, for the gardener!"

"Ay, is it so... you must miss the fruits and flowers of summer."

"Well, Sir,--but we are now paying back the garden, for the good things
it has given us.--It is like taking care of a friend in old age, who has
been kind to us when he was young."

Walter smiled at the quaint amiability of the idea.

"'Tis a winning thing, Sir, a garden!--It brings us an object every day;
and that's what I think a man ought to have if he wishes to lead a happy
life."

"It is true," said Walter; and mine host was encouraged to continue
by the attention and affable countenance of the stranger, for he was a
physiognomist in his way.

"And then, Sir, we have no disappointment in these objects:--the soil
is not ungrateful, as, they say, men are--though I have not often found
them so, by the by. What we sow we reap. I have an old book, Sir, lying
in my little parlour, all about fishing, and full of so many pretty
sayings about a country life, and meditation, and so forth, that it does
one as much good as a sermon to look into it. But to my mind, all those
sayings are more applicable to a gardener's life than a fisherman's."

"It is a less cruel life, certainly," said Walter.

"Yes, Sir; and then the scenes one makes oneself, the flowers one plants
with one's own hand, one enjoys more than all the beauties which don't
owe us any thing; at least, so it seems to me. I have always been
thankful to the accident that made me take to gardening."

"And what was that?"

"Why, Sir, you must know